The end of an epic journey…and my “aha” moment leading to the next venture!
Friday, June 4th, 2010
An epic journey has finally come to an end. Another one is about to begin. It has been a while since I blogged and for many reasons I had decided not to blog about the ups and downs of writing a PhD thesis at the Institute. There are so many different sub-projects in completing a PhD thesis, and the write-up phase is the last hurdle in the process. Anyway, at the end it all went well and many interesting findings came out of the struggle of everybody involved in this project (see our first project newsletter published last year).
The major finding, which I am sure another team will publish first, is that symptom variability has indeed a critical role in predicting who will be more unwell in the future. Again, as most previous similar studies have found, almost half of the “well” time of people with bipolar disorder is spent with sub-syndromal symptoms (bipolar symptoms expressed on a mild level), and most of these symptoms are depressive and quite impairing. In simple words this means that if you are bipolar and you are “well”, then you are quite likely to be a bit down most of your well time. Being just a bit down and miserable seems to be ok but having fluctuations in your light “misery” is a potential risk factor for spending more time with more severe symptoms in the future. The good news of course is that overall the time you are going to spend with very severe symptoms (e.g. episode time) is minimal in comparison to the overall time you are going to be well with no symptoms or just “well” with mild symptoms. So looking at the overall bipolar symptom picture it helps to keep this in perspective when you are going through an episode. There were of course other interesting findings that I prefer to try to publish in a scientific journal first 
before I blog! but you got the gist of it all.
However, one of the most interesting discoveries that I made early on in this project, my own “aha” moment (see Dr Schoenberg’s “aha” moment), is that essentially through this project an important and unique symptom monitoring service was developed for bipolar people. A symptom monitoring service that goes far and beyond the many electronic mood diaries that have populated the web recently. A human-led symptom monitoring service that will always be there for bipolar people in need.
I won’t tell you much more, but keep an eye out for the new and updated BipolarLab.com site and think about whether you want to be a Bipolar Spartan? Athenian? or Persian?
Also feel free to sign-up to our new mailing list for getting an earlier invitation to the forthcoming BipolarLab services.
Hope you all have a great summer.
Dr Yanni Malliaris 
p.s. If by any chance you happen to be a business angel and have an interest in investing in this venture, feel free to get in touch!
The Hellenic Bipolar Organisation (EDO, Elliniki Dipoliki Organosi) is the first non governmental non profit organisation for Bipolar patients (manic depressive illness) and related mood disorders in Greece. Its long term vision is to empower Greek Bipolar patients, their relatives, friends, and professionals with the ultimate aim of alleviating the ills of Bipolar disorder. It was founded in the loving memory of George Malliaris, father, professor and bipolar patient. The organisation works to develop programmes that promote self-management of the disorder by developing self-help groups and self-management courses, educates patients, professionals and the public by running seminars, 